Poison, Pain, and Promises

It's been a while since this experience happened, but it was a good testimony builder for me so I feel like sharing.

A few months ago I believe in September I had to face one of my biggest fears, one of the things that has been haunting me since I first heard about it...having my wisdom teeth pulled.

The day came and I was terrified, but everything was pushed back because I got sick! I was happy for about two seconds but then realized that I was not safe.  Eventually the real day was upon me and I was filled with complete dread.

 I am hypoglycemic; which means that if I don't eat often I get SUPER sick because my blood-sugar drops too low. I was not allowed to eat anything before my surgery, starting midnight the night before. So when I went to the Oral Surgeon I was feeling sick. I also HATE needles, so the idea of having an I.V. was making me freak out.

Well they pulled me into the surgery room and put me on laughing gas or something, what ever it was it was soooooo not fun! I am claustrophobic, and so having something over my nose like that totally freaked me out, then it started to make my throat ache, and I started to cry silently. I was scared out of my wits, and was strangely extremely aware of the hot tears pouring down my face.  Then I started to lose control of my own thought process, I hate not being in control of myself like that, it makes me angry. I started forgetting how to breath and had to remind myself to breath. I didn't know what to do.

 Then the thought came to me to pray, so that's what I did. I prayed hard, for the strength to get through this, that I would be ok, and that I would have peace. I prayed till the doctor dude came in and he started to get ready to put my I.V. in. He was talking to me and apparently I was being super sarcastic. Just in case you ever wondered, I.V.'s suck!

All the noises and the pressure on my mouth was freaking me out so I started to pray inside my head again, and then the thought came to me to start singing. So I started to hum "How Firm a Foundation" while they were pulling out my teeth. When I finished that song I started "Come Thou Fount" and the next thing I knew the doctor dude was singing along.

Finally it was over and they helped me to walk to my mom, I tried opening my eyes and then had to close them because I got so dizzy that I almost tossed my cookies. I just sat there with my mom sobbing and trying to sing "Ave Maria". I was soooooooooo sad.

On the way home I hugged my teddy-bear named Courage or Curry for short, felt super sick, and was very sad. My mom got me a chocolate shake and a smoothie for later to help my VERY low blood-sugar. I drank a bit of the smoothie. When we got home I threw it up.

The next few hours were brutal. Because of my low blood-sugar and the effects of the anesthesia, I spent my time sobbing, watching "Mako Mermaids",and barfing. I was miserable, I couldn't even hold down a glass of water. I even asked my mom to take me to the hospital to get an I.V. just so I could have some fluids in me. Yeah if I'm asking for that you know I feel like total crap. 

Normally in a situation like this my dad would give me a priesthood blessing, but he was out of town. My mom and I sat wondering what to do, when my boss texted me. My mom called my boss and explained the situation to him. He and his wife came over, and he gave me a blessing. In the blessing I was promised that by the end of the day I would be able to hold some food down, and not feel so sick. After the blessing was over my boss tried to talk to me but I got really dizzy and couldn't really understand what was being said, and I sat trying not to vomit. My boss and his wife could tell that I was not doing well so they said goodbye and went home. I then lost my lunch for the millionth time.

All day it was the same thing; sob, barf, sleep, watch T.V. I wanted to die. At one point I was in the bath and I just started to pray, I begged and pleaded for the Lord to help me be able to eat and bring my blood-sugar back up. I began reminding him that he had promised that he would help me be able to eat by the end of the day, and I told him that I had faith that he could and would help me.

At nine o'clock at night I fell asleep on the couch, and when I woke back up at ten, I felt a million times better. I was still super weak but I felt better. I ate some mashed potatoes and drank some sprite, and for the first time all day I held it down. I was so happy and immediately started to pray and thank my Father in Heaven for all his help throughout the day.

I know that the Lord is there for us always. I know that he will always help us, not always in the way or the timing that we would like, but he does help us. I know if we put our trust in him he will keep and fulfill all his promises to us. I am very grateful to him for all he does for me. I am also grateful to my boss for keeping himself worthy to provide a priesthood blessing, and I am also grateful that he was there to step in when my father was couldn't be there even though he really wished he could. I know that the power of the the Priesthood is real and it blesses our lives.

"An Unexpected Journey"

Hi y'all I'm Cassidi Shingleton soon to be Sister Shingleton! This blog is about my adventures as a sister missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Sometimes I feel like the life of a missionary is a bit elusive like it's kind of a mystery, I know there are a lot of things that talk about being a missionary such as all the different manuals the church puts out, and the video series, "The District", but I always wish I could just take a peek into the day to day life of a missionary. 

I recently found a blog called "bella in berlin"; this sister has let me take that peek into missionary work that I have always wanted to see, so I decided to add my testimony of missionary life and work to hers by writing this blog. I will write here about all the crazy things that lead up to my mission, and then once I get out on my mission I will write a post on Pdays. Hopefully through this blog I can help others learn and understand missionary stuff better. 

Let me start this blog off my telling the story of how my road to becoming a missionary began. 

I never wanted to serve a mission; before the age change I had always hoped to be married before I was old enough to serve a mission, so I never planed on serving. When President Monson announced the age change that now elders can serve at 18 and sisters at 19, I thought it was neat. I was excited for all my friends who really wanted to serve, now they could serve earlier! 

I on the other hand just wanted to study abroad so I could go see new things, but still be able to do all the worldly things I love, and hopefully meet my dream guy along the way. A mission just was not for me.

My family and friends started to bug me about serving, I have to admit it actually kind of made me angry, I thought to myself "Just leave me alone! It's my life! It's not a sin for girls not to go!" I just kinda blew my family off. After a while I was naughty and even started pushing against The Lord, which by the way is not a good plan. I think deep down in my heart I knew that I needed to serve. 

During this time I had the opportunity to serve a "mini mission" that's where for three days you get to stay with the missionaries and work as a missionary right alongside them. I had a TON of good experiences on my mini mission, I met a lot of neat people; including the awesome Sisters who were my companions for those three days. At one point I even ended up teaching the lesson! I have to say though that those three days were some of the most exhausting, hard days of my life, and I thought to myself "Now I know that missionary life is not for me." So again I blew my family and The Spirit off. 

Then one day I was at work, (FYI my boss is L.D.S) and my boss came in with tears in his eyes and said "Cass, I think you need to go on a mission." I looked at him like he was crazy an just said "What?" He then issued a challenge to me to actually try to find out for myself whether or not I needed to serve, and he gave me a time limit of two weeks. He made me promise and I  timidly and a bit grudgingly said fine. 

A week later was fast Sunday, so I was fasting but I didn't have an actual solid reason in my mind for why I was fasting. I was just sitting there in sacrament meeting listening to the testimonies when my boss got up to bear is testimony, and I remembered the challenge he gave to me, but then I pushed the thought out of my mind and started singing "lalalalalalalala" in m head. Now at this point I have to tell y'all that I am a huge nerd/geek or as my friends call me, a "nork" and while I was sitting singing lalala inside my head a quote from "The Hobit" by J.R.R. Tolkien popped Into my head and the quote was "I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it is very difficult to find anyone." For a second I was all like "what?" and then it hit me, and I knew that I was supposed to go and serve a mission. A few seconds later another thought entered my mind, and it was the image of little Mr. Bilbo Baggins running down the road with a contract in his hand and one of his neighbors asking him where he was going and rather excitedly Bilbo answers "I'm going on and adventure!". I started to giggle/cry which is hard to keep quiet when your in sacrament meeting. As soon as the meeting was over I went straight to the Bishop and asked how to start my papers. 

I didn't tell my family about it that day, but on Monday, at work I told my boss and he and I conspired to have a joint Family Home Evening with our families so that I could announce the news to my family. So later that night I told my family the story I just relayed to you. They were speechless And just started to cry. It was awesome!

So yeah that's the story of how I set out on this very unexpected journey. I now know for myself that this is the path that The Lord would have me take and I am excited to serve him and my brothers and sisters who are seeking the truth, and I am sure just like Mr. Baggins, there will be times when I will miss my "hobbit hole" dearly but it will all be worth it in the end an I will be a better person because of it.